Let the adventure begin.

Subject to (their) Homeland Security of course.

All six of us are now safely in the Holiday Inn, Tampico, Mexico.
We are, of course, in a hotel because our vehicles are still at sea. Originally
they should have been here on the 2006-01-12. So we naturally booked our
flights to get us here a few days early. Then the ship was cancelled! Then
un-cancelled. Then delayed till the 13th, now delayed till the 16th or 17th. So
we will wait.

We flew here in two groups. Bruce and Lesley arrived first, early,
comfortable and without incident. Clive, Ann, Stephen and Judy were not quite
so lucky. Our flight here required two changes, first in Atlanta, USA (Yes I
know you know Atlanta is in the USA but then Americans always say Paris,
France, as if you might not know.), then Mexico City. We had been warned that
arriving in Mexico without a return ticket might pose a problem (it didn't).
What we had not expected was that Delta Airlines would refuse to fly us to
Atlanta without us having an onward ticket from Mexico
(remember we already had an onward ticket from Atlanta!)

So before we could board our flight in the UK we had to buy (for
$850 USA each) a ticket from Mexico to Peru! Naturally we were assured that
this ticket would be easily refundable.

The nine and half hour flight to Atlanta was enlivened only by the
announcement that passengers must not assemble in groups of more than two,
otherwise the sky marshal would shoot them (or was that the flight attendant
would tell them to sit down). Even though we were in transit
thru Atlanta under USA regulations we still had to go thru USA immigration, be
photographed, finger printed, metal detected, shoe inspected etc. However the
one thing they were not interested in was if we had onward flights from
Mexico.

When we checked our baggage in the UK we took great care to
establish where we would need to collect it. We would have liked it checked all
the way to Tampico but this was not possible. As a result our flight connection
in Mexico city was tight. After waiting in vain for our baggage we eventually
established that it had probably been sent on to Tampico (or it might just be
still in Atlanta). By then with only 25 minutes to go we tried to check in for
our Tampico flight to be told the last transport to the plane had left the
terminal. The next flight was 06:55 the next day. An entertaining two hours was
spent trying to extract a new ticket and hotel accommodation from Aeromexico on
the grounds that Delta had misinformed us. We got the ticket but not the
accommodation.

Because our flight was not due
to leave for many hours, we could not enter the departure area and ended up
spending the night in a restaurant on the open and very cold outer part of the
airport. At 04:15 we started queuing at the Delta check-in area to try and get
a refund on our redundant Mexico to Peru tickets. At about 05:00 we were told
that refunds were not possible before 10:00 in Mexico City and not at all in
Tampico. Eventually a Delta supervisor (Francisco Campusando) agreed to take
our tickets and credit card details and arrange a refund in 20 to 40 working
days.

The 06:55 flight to Tampico was uneventful and our baggage was
waiting for us, as were a relaxed Bruce and Lesley at the Holiday inn.